Putting Sustainability on Trial

Putting Sustainability on Trial

Jan 22

I was given the opportunity to take a sustainability signature seminar before my semester abroad at Syracuse University’s London center. The course was GEO 300, Sustainability on Trial: Environmental Justice in Northern Europe. During the 10 day seminar we visited Sweden, Finland and Norway looking at how Northern Europe deals with topics such as urban development, tourism, and resources in relation to sustainability.  Environmental justice and sustainability aim to look at and analyze climate change and the relationship between humans and the environment. Through this lens they focus on the three main pillars of sustainability which is people, planet and profit. Through this course we looked at how urban development can be sustainable and shows that a balance can be achieved between caring for future generations while taking care of the needs of today. We also looked at the outcome of environmental policies that have been enacted. Environmental justice can be defined in many different ways. In simple terms, it can be divided into 3 parts: distribution, participation, and recongition. Distribution looks at negative and positive concerns of resources around the globe. Participation asks who can enact change, by looking at who makes decisions in different parts of the world. Recognition looks at how stakeholders and individuals need to look at issues through different perspectives when trying to come up with solutions. Through this definition of environmental justice, we looked at distribution of cost/benefit analysis, participation in policymaking, and recognition of how other groups of people live.   Some major questions I had answered on this trip:  What impact does food have on environmental justice and climate change?  How can food be sustainability resources in the modern world?  How can food waste disposal be effective and green? 

On the first day we were divided into roles to further investigate sustainability. I was given the role of a food scientist.